


Iron Chivalry

by em2mb



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Cold War, F/M, Mission Fic, OT3 if you squint, Post-World War II, Torture, Undercover as Married
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 18:13:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9337085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/em2mb/pseuds/em2mb
Summary: “Oh, don’t you act like I want to spend a week sleeping next to Jack Thompson,” Peggy scolds.“Could you stop saying his name in our bedroom?” Daniel grumbles, and it occurs to her it might make it worse for him, the fact that it’s Jack.For a diplomatic mission in West Berlin, Peggy must go undercover as the wife of a junior attaché. Plot twist: it’s not Daniel playing her husband.





	1. Peggy

“And where,” Peggy wants to know, arms folded across her chest, “did you take her?” When the man she’s interrogating doesn’t answer, she taps her toe impatiently. “You should know, I only ask nicely once.”

Finally, he lifts his bulbous chin, and Peggy thinks idly that he must still be alive by virtue of having too little neck to snap. Dottie certainly didn’t choose him for his looks. Or his charm. “Listen, lady, I wasn’t goin’ to say nothing’ _– ’cause I’m a gentleman –_  but I took her back to my place an’ showed her a good time, if you know what I mean.” His pale, watery eyes rake up and down Peggy. “You know, I wouldn’t mind showin’ you – ”

Quick as lightning, Peggy slams him face-first into the table. “Oh, that really won’t be necessary,” she says grimly, twisting his arm into a compliance hold as he splutters. “The woman you’ve been consorting with is a Soviet spy,” she informs him. “You’re lucky the SSR picked you up, you know. She undoubtedly would’ve killed you the second you stopped being useful. Now, are you ready to talk?”

The man, a security guard at Farmers and Merchants Bank, choke-coughs. _“Y-yes.”_

Peggy doesn’t ease up. “Did you tell this woman – ” she jerks her chin at the photo of Dottie on the table “ – how she might go about breaking into your place of – yes, Agent Morrison, is there something you need?”

Morrison hovers in the doorway. “You’re wanted in the chief’s office,” he says.

“I’m in the middle of an interrogation,” says Peggy, though that much should be obvious. She digs her elbow into the security guard’s back. “I’ll stop by later.”

“Sorry, Carter. I’m supposed to take over for you.”

“Not bloody likely,” Peggy snaps, and Dottie’s dim-witted accomplice pounds his fist on the table.

“Can’t ... breathe,” he pants.

Peggy grits her teeth, but she stops bearing down on him. “You can tell Daniel – ”

“The order didn’t come from Chief Sousa,” Morrison interrupts. He ducks his head and mumbles, “It came from Chief Thompson.”

“Jack’s here?” Peggy says sharply. “Why didn’t you say so?”

And she lets the bank security guard collapse in a sprawling heap on the table. She can hear him wheeze a confession as she straightens her clothes in the hallway. At least Morrison isn’t the type to take credit for her work. Peggy squares her shoulders, ready to do battle.

Two G-men in nondescript suits are posted outside her husband’s office. Choosing to ignore them, Peggy knocks once and lets herself in. Sure enough, the New York Bureau Chief of the SSR is sitting across from Daniel. “I see you brought your security detail,” she quips, pulling the door shut behind her. She could sit beside Jack, but instead she circles the desk to stand next to Daniel.

A united front.

“Can’t be too careful in this godforsaken town,” Jack says evenly, which Peggy supposes is fair. The last time he’d come to Los Angeles, he’d been shot point-blank in the chest. “Nice of you to finally join us, Marge.”

“If you must know,” Peggy says briskly, “I was in the middle of an interrogation. What brings you to California, Jack?”

He can’t keep the corners of his mouth from twitching. “Why, you, of course.”

That’s when Peggy realizes her husband still hasn’t said a word. Her fingers skim the credenza behind Daniel’s desk. It’s not like they haven’t spent the six months since they married waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Me,” she says flatly.

Jack jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Pack your bags, Marge. You’re coming with me.”

He was always going to let slip that his West Coast counterpart had married a subordinate. If anything, Peggy’s surprised it’s taken this long for a politically expedient opportunity to arise. “I’m being recalled to New York,” she surmises.

“Actually,” says Jack, pausing just long enough to make Peggy think she’s been court-martialed or fired or worse, “I need you for a diplomatic mission in West Berlin.” Then he smirks, lacing his long fingers together. “Your face, Marge. It’s almost like you were expecting – ”

“You know damn well what I was expecting,” Peggy interjects, furious. “You’re unbelievable, Jack Thompson. After everything we’ve done for you, after everything _I’ve_ done for you, would it kill – ”

“Peggy,” Daniel says quietly, “hear Jack out.”

He nudges an open file in her direction, and she snatches it from him, too wound up to appreciate he just stopped her from saying something she’d regret. Peggy’s eyes flicker across the top sheet. “Deep cover on behalf of USBER?” she asks, frowning. “What’s the SSR doing getting involved in – ”

“Acting General Huebner’s requested a hush-hush summit to try to smooth over tensions from the airlift,” Jack explains. “Acheson asked if I could spare a few agents, get our guys out should things head south.”

Peggy arches an eyebrow. “And you flew all the way to California because ... ”

She doesn’t like the look Daniel and Jack exchange. Her husband clears his throat. “Peggy – ”

But Jack beats Daniel to the punch. “Secretary Acheson asked for me specifically,” he boasts.

Peggy flips to the next page in the dossier. There, on the top of page two, is her cover: the wife of a junior attaché.

_Mrs. John Thompson._

*

Peggy’s still miffed that evening at home. “I just don’t like it, Daniel,” she says, pulling a pair of his slacks from the closet and smoothing them somewhat aggressively along the crease. They go into one of the two open suitcases on their bed. “Someone knows. They’re testing us.”

Daniel leaves his crutch propped against the dresser and hobbles over. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Peg,” he says, lowering himself with a slight grimace onto the edge of the mattress. “I know Jack downplayed the risk, but I can tell he’s worried.”

“Oh, please,” Peggy scoffs, slotting herself between his knees. His hands settle at her waist. “It’s a diplomatic mission. Jack could’ve walked downstairs and asked one of the switchboard girls to go for all I’ll be doing.”

There’s something possessive about the way Daniel’s thumb presses into her hip bone. “But if things were to go – ”

“Then it’s on Jack, isn’t it, for not training his female agents properly,” Peggy cuts in. When her husband doesn’t say anything, she reminds him, “The war is over, Daniel. I’m to spend my week babysitting the general’s wife while Jack curries favor with the right people. Who knows? If we’re lucky,” she adds, a bit waspishly, “he might even remember the SSR in those conversations.”

“I want you focused on the mission, Peggy,” Daniel says firmly. “Not the future of the SSR.”

Not a day earlier, she’d overheard him asking Rose to book him a flight to Washington, his third in as many months. _“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,”_ she says condescendingly. “Daniel, they’ve called you to testify before Congress to justify the SSR’s very existence!”

Daniel grabs her left hand before she can pull away from him, lifting it to his mouth and kissing her ringless finger. Like most days, she’s wearing her wedding band on a chain tucked into her blouse. “Asking as your husband, Peg,” he says softly.

“Oh, don’t you act like I want to spend a week sleeping next to Jack Thompson,” Peggy scolds.

“Could you stop saying his name in our bedroom?” Daniel grumbles, and it occurs to her it might make it worse for him, the fact that it’s Jack.

Peggy traces Daniel’s jaw with her finger. “Darling,” she assures him, “he isn’t half the man you are.”

She pretends not to hear his muttered, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Peggy goes back to packing. She’s about to pull her favorite nightgown off the hanger when Daniel says, “Not that one.” He grinds a fist into the mattress and pushes up from the bed. “How about this one?”

He’s plucked a decidedly more modest flannel from the closet. She crosses her arms. “Daniel, do you need me to turn this one down?”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “No, you’re right,” he says. “Pack the blue one.”

“Daniel, I swear to you,” Peggy says solemnly, wrapping her arms around his neck, “if Jack so much as makes eyes at me – ” she pauses “ – I’ll punch him in the nose.”

Daniel chuckles. “You’re something else, Peggy Carter,” he says, ducking his head to press a kiss to her collarbone.

Peggy hums her approval. “That’s Mrs. Sousa to you. Besides,” she says brightly, “it’s not like you won’t be there to keep an eye on him.”

“I guess that’s true,” Daniel says thoughtfully, like he’s only just remembered he’s accompanying them to Germany. “I trust you, Peggy.”

She doesn’t pack the blue nightgown.

*

“Well, c’mon,” says Jack, reaching for her left hand the next day on the transatlantic leg of their journey, “let’s see it.”

Peggy snatches her hand away. “See what?”

“Your engagement ring, Marge,” says Jack, like she’s stupid. “I should know what it looks like, seeing as I gave it to you.”

Peggy bristles. “You’ve seen it before,” she insists, folding her hands in her lap, right on top of left. “You were there when Daniel asked me to marry him.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Sure, if you want to call that a proposal. But he didn’t get you a ring until after I’d split town.”

“You mean when you checked yourself out of the hospital against the doctor’s orders and left without saying goodbye?” Peggy retorts. “Ah, yes, now I remember.”

It’s a good thing they’re the only ones in their row because a frustrated of tug-of-war ensues. Jack does, eventually, manage to get Peggy’s arm away from her. “Huh,” he says, turning her hand every which way. “I guess he did the thing.”

Peggy jerks her hand away. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks irritably, massaging her wrist.

Jack chuckles. “I have trouble imagining Sousa down on one knee.” Without allowing the insult the air to breathe, he asks, “Why weren’t you wearing it the other day?”

“Because,” says Peggy through gritted teeth, “a suspect complained when it split his lip.”

“Still the stick, I see.” Jack shifts in his seat, and if Peggy’s not mistaken, his pinched face looks more pinched than usual.

“What’s wrong?” she demands.

Jack shushes her. “Do you want to wake the whole cabin?” he hisses, even as his lips sink into a grimace.

“It’s not nothing,” Peggy says confidently, unbuckling her seat belt. “You couldn’t sit still on the flight from Kansas City to New York, either. What’s wrong? I’ll fetch Agent Morrison. He’ll know what to – ”

“I don’t care how many legs he sawed off during the war,” Jack growls savagely, which tells her he’s still bitter about having to leave one of his lapdogs in New York. “Jesus, Carter, if you keep nagging me like that, people might actually think we’re married.” He closes his eyes, but not before muttering, “God, I don’t know how Sousa stands it.”

“Ma’am,” the stewardess whispers when Peggy stands up, “the first-class cabin has its own – ”

But Peggy isn’t looking for a toilet. She pushes her way into coach, where her actual husband is sitting in the very last row. She drops into the empty seat next to Daniel. “I’m going to kill him.”

Daniel straightens. “Jack?” he guesses.

Peggy nods. “Of course, given how he’s squirming about, he might go before I get the pleasure.” So Daniel hadn’t gotten down on one knee. It’s not like it makes his proposal – or their marriage – any less valid.

“What’s his deal?”

“Oh, I have no doubt he’s overexerted himself,” says Peggy. She still isn’t sure why Jack felt the need to fly all the way to Los Angeles when he could have just picked up the phone. “As my CO, shouldn’t you be telling me to refrain from violence against my partner?”

“As your husband, I’d suggest a swift kick out the nearest emergency exit.” Daniel’s voice drops even lower. “You shouldn’t be back here, Peggy.”

“What about you? How are you holding up? How’s your leg? It’s not swelling, is it?” He’d been uncomfortable the last time they’d had a chance to talk, on the flight from Denver to Kansas City. Since Jack had made the trek West, they’d decided to assume their identities in the home state of President Truman. That way, if anyone asked, John and Margaret could pretend the senator from Pendergast introduced them.

Instead of answering, Daniel reminds her, “You’re supposed to be married to Jack.”

Peggy bats her eyelashes. “But I’m already sitting with my husband.”

“Peggy, go. Now. Before people start to talk.”

Peggy glances around the cabin. “Who’s going to talk, Daniel? Agent Morrison? You’re the one who insisted we bring him.” Not that she’d disagreed with his tactical assessment. If things do in fact go ass over teakettle, they’ll want a trained medic on the team. “Which, if you’re wondering, rankled Jack. I don’t think he trusts anyone he didn’t handpick.”

“Can you blame him?”

It’s been almost two years, and they still don’t know who tried to kill Jack. Though not for lack of trying. In fact, she’d be pursuing the matter still if he hadn’t insisted she stop – and threatened to remand her to New York if she didn’t. Peggy purses her lips. “I suppose not, no.”

Daniel points up the aircraft to the first-class cabin.

“Oh, fine,” says Peggy. She kisses him on the lips, and she’s gone.

*

The general knows Peggy and Jack are with the SSR, but they’re introduced to his wife as John Thompson and his bride, Margaret. Florence “oohs” and “aahs” over Peggy’s ring. “It just warms my heart to see young people in love,” she gushes as her husband argues with the hotel staff.

Peggy catches Jack by the elbow. “Did you hear that, darling?” she purrs. “Mrs. Huebner was _just_ saying how much she likes my ring.” She holds out her hand, letting the diamond catch the light, and purposefully treads on Jack’s foot.

Jack isn’t so much smiling as he is baring his teeth. “Was she?” he asks, holding open his jacket to tuck a card from hotel concierge into an interior pocket. It’s also an opportunity to tap out their room number in Morse code for Agent Blough, who’s been pretending to read _Die Neue Zeitung_ on a nearby couch this whole time.

“Mmm hmm,” Peggy murmurs, watching Blough fold his newspaper out of the corner of her eye. She hears him cross the lobby, ask a porter the time in German and leave. Peggy seizes Jack’s arm and giggles girlishly. “John says if I put up with him for a whole year, he’ll buy the matching earrings.”

Florence’s titter sets Peggy’s teeth on edge, but she knows she had better get used to it. She’s scheduled to spend the whole next day with Florence while Jack visits Tempelhof airport with the general. The blockade may be over, but the airlift won’t end until the Allies have amassed at least three months of supplies. Florence’s promise to take Peggy “all around” Clayallee had felt rather like a threat.

“Clarence never buys me jewelry,” Florence says wistfully. “How long did you say you’ve been married?”

Before Peggy can answer, Jack’s slung an arm around her waist. “Seven months on Sunday,” he says, and as if rattling off her actual wedding anniversary wasn’t bad enough, he gives her bottom a playful smack.

On the elevator, Peggy slaps Jack as hard as she can.

“Do that again,” he threatens, “and I’ll write you up for insubordination.” He works his jaw. “Ow.”

“Touch me again, Jack, and I’ll see to it that the press catches you with your pants down on Potsdamer Strasse.”

Jack’s eyes narrow. “You couldn’t.” Her arched eyebrow asks if that’s a theory he really wants to test. “You wouldn’t.”

“I could, and I would,” says Peggy, which is of course a lie. She’d never compromise diplomatic relations like that. But sometimes Jack needs to be put in his place. As the elevator lurches to a stop, she wags her finger at him. “Behave.”

Daniel and Blough are already in the room, sweeping for bugs. Morrison arrives a minute later with their bags, dressed as a hotel porter. He doesn’t break character, and Jack is forced to fork over a couple of crumpled Deutschmarks to get him to leave.

“Not a word, Blough,” Jack snarls as his subordinate’s shoulders shake with barely-contained laughter. He loosens his tie, kicks off his shoes and flops onto the bed. “Marge, wake me up in time for dinner, will you?” He pulls his hat over his eyes.

Daniel is peering out the window through a pair of binoculars. “Is that where you’ll be?” Peggy asks, nodding toward the boarded-up building across the street.

“Unfortunately,” says Daniel, jotting down a few more numbers before lowering the binoculars. He flashes her a weary smile, and Peggy has to wonder if he’s slept since they parted ways at Rhein-Main Air Base eighteen hours earlier. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? C’mere.”

“You tryin’ to put the moves on my wife, Sousa?” Jack calls from the bed.

Peggy’s mouth falls open, but Daniel presses a finger to her lips. “Ignore him,” he says. “Tell me about your trip.”

She and Jack had spent the night in Frankfurt am Main before catching the train to West Berlin that morning. They’d been put up in barracks, and something about lying flat on her back in a bunk, listening to Jack snore, had reminded Peggy of the war. But she doesn’t tell Daniel that. “Boring,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. He has a day’s worth of stubble on his chin and in her opinion has never looked more handsome. “And yours?”

Daniel’s team had hitched a ride in on a C-54 delivering coal. “Uneventful.”

“What’s that you’re writing?”

“Oh, just a trick Samberly taught me,” says Daniel, handing her the binoculars so she can get a better look at the fire-damaged roof and broken windows. “I think I’ll put Morrison up on the roof and Blough on patrol.”

Peggy squints at what he’s written down. “And yourself on the rusty fire escape that looks like it’s about to pull away from the building?” she surmises. “There are better defensive positions, Daniel.”

“Some of us are _trying_ to sleep.”

They both pretend not to hear Jack. Daniel gives her a chaste kiss, probably because Blough isn’t so discreetly watching them. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m on offense. Try not to kill Jack?”

“I won’t before dinner,” Peggy says grimly, “but after that, no promises.”

*

“I thought listening to you yammer in the Queen’s English was bad,” Jack complains when they get back on the elevator after dinner, “but that accent’s god-awful. Americans don’t talk like that, Carter. You sound like a call girl.”

“You sound like you would know,” Peggy retorts.

*

“I’m sorry,” Peggy wheezes the next day, bent double on the tennis court, “I’m afraid I’m out of practice.”

“It’s OK, dear,” says Florence, though it’s plain to Peggy she’s disappointed the new junior attaché did not bring with him a more suitable doubles partner. “Not being able to play tennis isn’t a moral failing.”

Peggy thinks Headmaster Portley would disagree, but Mrs. John Thompson didn’t attend St Martin-in-the-Fields High School For Girls. She forces a smile. “Tomorrow,” Peggy promises, though she’d prefer torture to further humiliation on the tennis court, “I’ll be better rested.”

Sure enough, Florence clucks her tongue. “You poor dear,” she says sympathetically, and Peggy braces for the inevitable barrage of tips for overcoming jet lag by taking a swig of her water. Which is the exact wrong thing to do because the next words out of Florence’s mouth are, “John keeping you up?”

Peggy spits water everywhere. “I-I beg your pardon?” she stammers, almost slipping out of character.

“Such a _virile_ young man,” Florence continues as Peggy splutters about time zones. “Oh, don’t be coy. The general and I were young once, too, you know. Why, before I had Mary Juliette – ” she breaks off, as if she’s just remembered she has a daughter Peggy’s age. Not that it stops Florence from wagging a finger at her young companion. “Enjoy it while you can.”

“I-I will,” Peggy manages, if only to end the conversation. She supposes Florence’s assumption is fair. After all, she and Jack are posing as newlyweds. If it had been Daniel in bed with her, well, let’s just say they would have kept each other up. Peggy’s cheeks pinken thinking about her actual husband.

Florence pats Peggy’s elbow as if to say, “There, there, dear.” She nods at the MP posted just outside the gate.

Clayallee, home of the U.S. mission to Berlin, once housed the German Luftwaffe, and after the war, it had clearly been someone’s job to rid the complex of swastikas. On many of the buildings, however, _reichsadler_ remain, and they have to walk right under one to go inside. The ornamental war eagle doesn’t seem to bother Florence, who’s lived in occupied Germany for some time, but it sends an involuntary shudder down Peggy’s spine. She can see Jack on the far end of the hall, standing alongside General Huebner. Florence waves them over.

Inevitably, Peggy will have to kiss Jack. But at the moment, she’s tired, she’s hot, and she’s just been forced to consider his virility. She gives Jack a quick peck on the cheek. Florence looks disappointed, but the general nods approvingly. He seems less than thrilled to see his own wife.

“How was the airport?” Peggy asks, tilting her chin up. She’s envious Jack gets to wear a suit while she’s worried the super-short tennis dress will ride up and expose her knickers.

Jack smirks when he sees her sweat-damp hair plastered to her forehead. “Everything seems to be in order,” he says. “How was tennis?”

Peggy knows if she cops to being bad at racket sports, she’ll never hear the end of it, so she says, “Florence is a worthy opponent.”

Florence, however, doesn’t let Peggy off the hook. “Your wife needs lessons,” she tells Jack. “I’ll give you the name of my instructor at the Columbia Club.” He opens his mouth. She gives him a stern look. He closes it. “You should carve out some time to go with her.”

“Florence,” Huebner says gruffly, “don’t you think Thompson has better things to do than – ”

“John,” Florence says sweetly, stepping in front of her husband, “a bit of advice? Keep your new bride happy, or she might eventually tire of traipsing around the world after you.” She gives Jack a condescending pat on the cheek. “The Columbia Club, dear. Don’t forget.”

*

The bathroom door creaks open, and Peggy freezes, warm water cascading over her shoulders. So much for making her hair presentable before dinner. She widens her stance, trying to decide how best to defend herself. She might be able to tear down the shower rod and use it as a staff. She reaches for the bar soap and prepares to fling it at her would-be assailant.

But it’s only Jack. “It’s me, Marge,” he says lazily. He must be able to see her silhouette through the shower curtain because he tells her, “Stand down.”

His dirty chuckle leaves Peggy feeling more exposed than she had when she thought she was about to be attacked. “Don’t say ‘it’s me’ like it gives you any right to barge in here,” she snaps. “Now, what’s so important – ”

There’s the unmistakable sound of a toilet lid being flipped up. Peggy sticks her head out just in time to see Jack unzip his fly. She recoils, whipping the curtain closed as liquid splashes into the porcelain bowl.

“Oh, that’s bloody disgusting,” Peggy complains over the flushing toilet.

“Sorry,” calls Jack, unapologetic. He buckles his belt. “Had to take a leak.”

“And it couldn’t have waited five minutes?”

Jack snorts. “Right, Marge. Like you would’ve been done in five. Besides, shouldn’t you be used to it? You’re married.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re telling me Danny boy’s never hit the head while you were in the shower?”

“No!”

Peggy’s still fuming half an hour later when Daniel arrives with Blough to wire them. _“Ugh,”_ she huffs, dusting her cheeks with rouge, “he’s been absolutely insufferable, Daniel. No wonder he doesn’t – ” she breaks off when she notices her husband’s clenched jaw reflected in the mirror. “What is it?” she demands.

Daniel doesn’t look up until he has the transmitter tucked into her girdle pocket. “What’s what?” he mutters, quickly averting his eyes when he sees she’s staring at him. He adjusts the straps of her corselet without having to be asked, but his sure fingers hesitate when they brush over old bullet scars.

Peggy watches the tendons in his neck tighten. “Something’s upset you,” she observes. “I want to know what.”

“It’s nothing, Peg,” Daniel insists, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

But Peggy can’t drop it, won’t drop it. It simply isn’t in her nature to. “Is it Jack?” she asks. When Daniel doesn’t answer, she continues, “It’s Jack, isn’t it? Darling, you mustn't – ”

“The plane we flew in on yesterday crash-landed at Tempelhof. Burned on the runway.”

Peggy twists around to face her husband. “Why didn’t Jack say something? He was _just_ there with General – ”

“Happened right after they left,” Daniel interjects. He exhales slowly. “Morrison and I could see the fireball from the roof.” He pauses. “The pilot didn’t survive.”

“Oh, Daniel.” Peggy wraps her arms around his neck, drawing him toward her. She can feel his hot breath on her breasts as she cards her fingers through his hair.

“I know you’re going to tell me the war’s over,” he says, voice slightly muffled, “but sleeping in an abandoned factory, planes flying so close the whole building shakes ... ”

Peggy bites her lip, remembering how unsettling it had been to walk beneath the heraldic eagle that afternoon. She lifts Daniel’s chin. “Kiss me,” she orders.

*

John and Margaret are very nearly late to dinner.

“Because you wouldn’t stop making googly eyes at Sousa,” Jack grumbles under his breath as he pulls Peggy’s chair out for her.

It’s categorically false – it was Jack who’d held them up, insisting he could wire himself without Blough’s help – but she’ll be damned if she blows their cover at a table full of communists. She takes Jack’s outstretched hand. “So sorry,” Peggy gushes as he scoots her in, “my fault, really, just couldn’t decide which necklace to wear ... ”

“The one you’ve chosen is lovely,” Florence assures her, but Elly Winter huffs. She leans over and whispers something to her father, the newly-elected general secretary of the Socialist Unity Party, in German. Wilhelm Pieck nods once, then glares at Jack.

Jack nudges Peggy during the salad course. “Remind me who she is?” he whispers, beckoning to the waiter.

Peggy picks up her napkin and dabs at her mouth. “Elly Winter,” she mutters. “Pieck’s daughter.”

“I know who she _is,”_ Jack says, nonchalantly slinging his arm over the back of Peggy’s chair as the waiter clears their plates. His fingertips graze her bare shoulder, and she has to tamp down the urge to smack his hand away. “What I want to know is why she’s _here.”_

Peggy tilts her chin up. “It must really gall you,” she murmurs, as though she’s whispering sweet nothings in his ear, “to see a woman conversing with men as an equal.”

She’s not expecting the funny little smile to appear on his face – or the kiss he presses to her mouth. “Let you in on a secret, Marge,” he says, letting his lips linger on hers. “She’s the only one that thinks she’s equal.”

Florence, of course, looks positively delighted.

*

Peggy wipes her hands on her trousers, slowly exhales the breath she’d been holding and sets her sights on the rusty fire escape, ten feet straight ahead.

Then she takes a running leap.

She manages to close her fingers around the bottom rung of the ladder, but barely. She pitches forward, carried by the momentum of her swinging legs, and for a terrifying split-second, Peggy expects the fire escape to come crashing down on top of her.

But once it stops reverberating, she’s able to hoist herself onto the platform. Breathing heavily, Peggy inspects her palms. The skin isn’t even broken. Still, she’s careful as she rolls off her belly. She already has one ugly scar from the fall at Roxxon to remind her of her own mortality. She doesn’t need another.

“Hands in the air!” someone shouts, and though she ends up staring down the barrel of a gun briefly, Peggy can’t help but roll her eyes when Blough sighs with relief. “Oh, it’s you,” he says, holstering his weapon. He reaches out the broken window and offers her his hand. “Uh, if you could maybe not tell Chief Sousa that I – that I, er, pulled a gun on his – well, on a – ”

“On a fellow agent?” Peggy supplies, if for no other reason than she might be out here awhile if he has to work out what to call her on his own. No, she wants to see Daniel, and it’s not like the fire escape is getting any safer. “Why not? For all you knew, I was an intruder intent on causing you harm. You acted appropriately, Agent Blough.”

“Yes, but what if I’d – ”

“You didn’t,” Peggy interrupts, though she can’t quiet the niggling voice in the back of her brain that’s asking the same question. _Yes, Peggy, what would you have done if he’d shot you? How would you have explained it to Daniel?_ “I need to have a word with my husband. Where is he?”

“Up on the third floor. If you want, I can show – ”

“That won’t be necessary, Agent Blough,” Peggy cuts in. She waves her hand dismissively. “Go on, shoo.”

Though the interior stairs are in somewhat better shape than the metal ones outside, Peggy still doesn’t relish the idea of Daniel navigating them with his crutch. She steps gingerly over a long, charred piece of wood that might’ve once been the handrail. If not for the thick coat of dust, she would think the factory had been bombed yesterday.

“Daniel?” Peggy calls when she reaches the third floor. Not wanting to try her luck twice in the same night, she figures she had better announce herself. “Only me, darling.”

“Peggy?” comes the confused reply. “What’re you doing – you know what? Never mind.” There’s the tell-tale scrape of metal on wood. “Hold on, I’ll come – ”

“No need,” Peggy announces from the doorway.

“You’re not supposed to be here, Peggy,” Daniel says, reaching for a match. He has to flick it a couple of times to get it to light. The candle casts a soft glow on everything in the room, which isn’t much. A table with recording equipment on it. A couple folding chairs. An Army cot with a moth-eaten blanket, the suitcase that matches hers stashed underneath. She doubts he’s even opened it – he’s still in the rumpled suit from three days ago, the one he’d worn on the plane.

Peggy eases into his lap anyway. “You’re lucky I spent the summer of ’44 with the Commandos,” she teases, shifting her weight so she’s perched on his left thigh. “I’m pretty sure I left my sense of smell in Le Havre.”

Daniel’s curiosity gets the better of him. “What happened in Le Havre?” he asks thoughtfully, his arms circling her waist, and Peggy knows at least half the battle’s won.

“Well,” she says, wrapping her arms around his neck. He doesn’t actually smell that bad. She might even be catching a whiff of cheap soap from a sink sponge bath. “I don’t know how many days we’d been traipsing through the countryside at that point – suffice to say none of us had showered since before D-Day. Well, we’re cutting across an open field when suddenly Gabe starts shouting for everyone to get down because he can hear the Luftwaffe. Someone dragged me into the barn – ” as she sometimes does when she tells war stories, Peggy glosses over the fact that it was Steve, though surely her husband could guess she’d been saved by Captain America himself “ – but Dum Dum and Bucky didn’t have much choice but to dive into the pigpen. We ended up hiking a day and a half out of our way so they could shower.”

Instead of chuckling appreciatively, Daniel points out, “You wouldn’t have to smell me at all if you’d stayed at the hotel like you were supposed to.”

Peggy’s nose wrinkles, like she’s remembering the taste of a really terrible bite of food. She’d seethed all the way through dessert, wondering how she might justify sneaking out to see her husband. Then Vasily Sokolovsky, the Soviet Deputy Minister of Defense, suggested the men continue their conversation over cigars. Peggy bats her eyelashes. “I thought you might need help translating.”

“Morrison speaks Russian too, you know.”

“Yes, well, his Russian isn’t as good as mine,” Peggy says waspishly. “Where is he, anyway? I didn’t see him on my way up.”

“That’s because he’s on the roof.” Daniel pauses, rubbing his mouth. “Christ, Peg. You’re lucky he didn’t see you. What if he’d thought you were an intruder?”

“Agent Blough did, and I lived to tell the tale. Oh, don’t fuss. He caught me on the fire escape,” she explains, fingers brushing Daniel’s collar. So much for undressing him. It seems he’d rather lecture her. “I think he’s afraid of me.”

“Who, Blough? Wouldn’t surprise me. He transferred from the D.C. office, where your reputation precedes you.” The corners of Daniel’s mouth twitch.

“Jack didn’t hire Blough?” she says sharply.

“Not according to his personnel file.”

Peggy frowns. “Then why fight tooth and nail for him?” Jack had shouted down her suggestion that they pick a New York agent with whom she and Daniel had worked before.

Daniel shrugs. “Maybe they served together during the war. I know Blough was stationed in the South Pacific. At least that’s what he told me when I asked if it wasn’t eerie being back. Tsuken Island mean anything to you?”

“Unfortunately, it does,” Peggy says grimly, wondering if Blough has any reason to suspect his boss’ Navy Cross was ill-gotten. If so, she could just see Jack putting Blough on this particular mission in exchange for his silence. “It doesn’t bother you we’re basically here to further Jack’s ambitions?”

“Peggy.”

“Please, Daniel. Like he’s not here to audition for his next job. Listen to him suck up to General Huebner.” She jerks her chin in the direction of the still-rolling recording equipment just as it picks up the raucous laughter of men who’ve had too much to drink. “The worst part is, Jack wouldn’t even be bad at it.” He’d known which fork to use for the fish course, and truthfully, that’s what annoys Peggy most. Jack doesn’t have to pretend to be well-born John Thompson because he really is well-born John Thompson. Just like she wouldn’t be pretending if she’d married Fred. She really would’ve been the simpering wife of an ambitious young diplomat. She wouldn’t be needing tennis lessons and truly would be looking forward to new earrings at Christmas. “Ugh, and when I was so close to a break in the Underwood case, too.”

Peggy can tell by the way he says her name she’s not going to like what comes out of his mouth next. “Peggy,” says Daniel, and he sighs. “Look – and don’t take this the wrong way – but you’ve been pursuing Dottie for how long now? Eighteen, nineteen months, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of her?”

Peggy clenches her jaw. “If you’re trying to tell me something, Daniel, you might as well come right out and say it.”

“All I’m saying is you can chase Dottie when we get back.”

“So noted,” says Peggy through gritted teeth. “I’ll just be going, then.”

“Peggy – ”

“No, no, I think you’ve made your position quite clear,” she says coolly, sliding off his lap. “Chief Sousa.”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “Agent Carter.”

But that’s it. He doesn’t try to stop her, and that might be what bothers Peggy most of all. Does he not understand she’s there because she hates sleeping next to Jack? That there isn’t a part of this whole farce she’d choose for herself now? Peggy bites her lip. She’s not sure how to tell her husband she misses him.

That’s when a single gunshot echoes in the street.

Peggy immediately withdraws her Walther PPK and moves toward the window. Even in the dim light, she can see Blough standing over a man’s prone form.

“I had to shoot him,” Blough calls up desperately. “He was trying to break into Peggy and Jack’s room!”


	2. Jack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Jack doesn’t deny it, sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed and kicking off one shoe, then the other. “Ever wonder,” he asks, jerking at his tie, “why trouble follows you wherever you go?”_
> 
> _“Ever wonder why so many people want to kill you?” Peggy retorts._
> 
> _Jack stops his frustrated tugging. His eyes follow her to the window. “Low blow, Marge.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which this fic earns its rating. Rated M for sexual content and some off-screen torture.
> 
> This chapter wouldn't have happened if not for [lazaefair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazaefair/pseuds/lazaefair).
> 
> I repeat, this chapter wouldn't have happened if not for lazaefair. Her editing skills are always invaluable, but if she hadn't have held my hand during the writing process, I sincerely doubt I'd be posting this today. She's seriously the best friend and roommate a girl could have.

Jack’s first thought when he stumbles out of the hotel is his eyes must be playing tricks on him because there’s no way a body is sprawled in the middle of Pariser Platz. Then he sees who’s standing over the dead man and almost snorts. 

Peggy lifts her head. “Chief Thompson,” she says briskly, the knuckles of one hand resting on the jut of her hipbone, “this man was trying to sneak into our room.”

Seeing as she’s changed out of her figure-hugging evening gown and into dark pants, perfect for sneaking, Jack’s willing to wager she wasn’t in the room at the time. “So you had to shoot him?” he asks incredulously, kicking at the corpse’s toe before he remembers he’s wearing his dress shoes. 

“Actually, sir, I shot him.”

Jack’s not sure how he missed Blough sitting on the curb with his head in his hands. “You shot him,” he repeats.

Predictably, Peggy butts in. “Chief Thompson, if I may – ” 

“No, Marge, you may not,” Jack snaps. “Now – ” he pauses, but for once she doesn’t try to talk over him “ – does anyone want to explain to me what the hell happened here?” No one answers. Jack glares at Daniel.

Daniel clears his throat. “Agent Blough,” he says quietly, “why don’t you tell Chief Thompson what you told Agent Carter?”

Blough tilts his face up and nods, rising to his feet. “Yes, sir,” he says. “At approximately 0100 hours – ”

“Hold on,” Jack interrupts. “Why wasn’t he telling you?”

Daniel frowns. “Pardon?”

“You said to tell me what he told Agent Carter. Where were you?” 

“Still in the building.” Daniel tightens his grip on his crutch, and suddenly Jack feels like an ass.

Peggy addresses Blough over the body. “Agent Blough, continue.”

But Jack doesn’t need Blough to tell him what happened. He peers up the hotel facade. A curtain flutters in the open window. Peggy sure as hell wouldn’t have left it that way, and he’d picked Blough for this mission because he’s too dumb to be disloyal. The man on the ground is wiry – built for scaling walls. Slowly, the intruder pries the window open. Blough sees a shadowy figure out of the corner of his eye, panics, fires a shot. Gets lucky.

_ Splat. _

“Ja-ack,” Peggy complains, “are you paying attention?”

With a flippant wave, Jack indicates the dead man’s path of travel. “Guy crumples, yeah, yeah.” He scratches the underside of his chin. “Doesn’t explain what you’re doing out here, though.”

Peggy crosses her arms. “Me?” she says defensively. “What about you?”

Jack steps forward, loose-limbed.  _ “I _ heard a gunshot.” He can feel his heart pounding beneath his breastbone, and that’s how he knows he’s had too much to drink.

Daniel catches Peggy by the arm. “Jack’s right,” he tells her in a low tone. “You need to get back inside before anyone sees you.”

“Fine,” Peggy says through gritted teeth. She jerks her arm out of her husband’s grasp and stalks off.

Jack waits until she’s out of earshot. “Ouch.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.

Daniel swings forward on his crutch. “You too, Jack. It’ll blow your cover if one of the Russkies sees you standing over a dead body.”

This time Jack does snort. “Wouldn’t want them to think I killed their comrade, no.” 

“Go on,” Daniel urges. “Blough and I’ll handle this.” Never mind that Blough still looks like he’s about to be sick. Jack arches an eyebrow. Daniel sighs. “OK, Morrison and I’ll handle this.”

Jack doesn’t like to be reminded he didn’t get his way. “And where is Agent Morrison?” he says snidely. “Shouldn’t he be helping put Humpty Dumpty back together again?” He watches Daniel lower himself onto one knee.

“If all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again,” Daniel says grimly, rolling the dead man onto his back, “I’m not sure what you think an Army medic will be able to do.” Glassy eyes stare up at Jack. “And I told Agent Morrison to stay put until we knew what we were dealing with.”

Jack has to look away when he sees the trickle of blood coming out of the corpse’s ear. “Good call,” he manages.

Daniel carefully removes the dead man’s Soviet-made Tokarev TT-33 with suppressor from its holster. Jack’s stomach lurches. “Jesus,” Daniel mutters. He motions to Blough. “Fetch Morrison for me, will you?” To Jack, he says, “You shouldn’t be here,” more firmly than he had before.

“I’m not your subordinate,” Jack snarls because it irks him to witness Daniel give orders like he’s the boss. Last Jack checked, Blough still reported to him.

“And I’m not yours,” Daniel says wearily.

Feeling hot under the collar, Jack rubs the back of his neck. “I can’t believe you volunteered for this.”

“Not like you left me much choice.”

Jack shakes his head. “Not the mission. Marriage.”

Daniel stops rifling through the dead man’s wallet. “Dunno, Jack.” His eyes flicker up to the now-closed window. “I wouldn’t turn down a soft bed about now.”

“Even if you’d have to share it with a shrieking harpy?” Jack wants to know.

Instead of decking him, Daniel chuckles once. “You could tell her why we’re really here.”

Jack scoffs. “Why would I do that?”

Daniel shrugs. “Fine, don’t take my advice. What do I know? She’s only my wife. Just tryin’ to make your life easier, Jack.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack calls over his shoulder, and he almost trips up the curb. He creeps back into the hotel through the same side door he came out of. He pauses to watch Daniel struggle to his feet. The light from the streetlamp casts the body in an otherworldly glow. Jack shudders.

He can hear the Soviets carousing in the lobby and neatly avoids them by taking the stairs. He trudges up two flights before he has to stop and catch his breath, which gives him just enough time to start panicking. Jack clings to the railing, sucking in great gulps of air. If he’d turned in early. If Peggy hadn’t sneaked off. If Blough had missed. Jack’s hands shake as he unlocks the door to the hotel room.

Peggy’s Walther PPK gleams on her hip. “You’re drunk,” she accuses.

Jack doesn’t deny it, sitting down heavily on the edge of the bed and kicking off one shoe, then the other. “Ever wonder,” he asks, jerking at his tie, “why trouble follows you wherever you go?”

“Ever wonder why so many people want to kill you?” Peggy retorts.

Jack stops his frustrated tugging. His eyes follow her to the window. “Low blow, Marge.” Then his curiosity gets the better of him, and he asks, “They get the body moved?”

“You can get up and see for yourself,” Peggy informs him, craning her neck to get a better view of whatever’s happening on the street below.

“Nah,” says Jack before he can stop himself, “it’s sad enough watching Sousa drag himself around.”

The corners of her mouth turn up in a smile Jack might describe as coquettish if he didn’t know better. “It bothers you, doesn’t it,” Peggy says sweetly, “that a disabled man has the same job as you.”

Her words wound him, as she no doubt intended. Because she knows Jack came back just as damaged, just as broken, only his trauma isn’t as visible as a leg that truncates mid-thigh. The one and only time he’d seen Daniel without his prosthesis had been during Jack’s own long convalescence in L.A. He’d been surprised to see the leg ended in a neat knob of flesh – he’d always expected the limb to be badly scarred. 

(And ever since, there have been days where Jack wondered if he wouldn’t prefer a burden as easily unstrapped as Daniel’s leg.) 

Too tired to argue, Jack closes his eyes. Peggy’s still at the window, huffing every now and then. Finally, he hears her draw the curtains closed. “A shame, really.”

Jack opens one eye. “That some Commie splattered himself all over the pavement?”

“No,” says Peggy, “that finally something interesting happened on this benighted operation, and I’m stuck watching like some bloody civilian.  _ With you,” _ she adds contemptuously.

Jack goggles at her. “You do realize we could’ve been killed, right?”

“Nonsense,” says Peggy, crossing to the vanity. “It’s not like either of us was in the room.” 

Jack watches, fascinated, as she begins yanking pins from her hair. “You would’ve been, had you been where you were supposed to,” he points out.

“Unlike Mrs. John Thompson,” she says, picking up her hairbrush and dragging it aggressively through her curls.  _ “I _ can handle myself.” 

“You don’t get it, do you? We’re on a dangerous mission. If we get caught – ”

“Come now, Florence’s backhand isn’t especially dangerous.” Now Peggy twists a lock of hair into a tight coil and secures it with two pins. “My time would be better spent bringing Dottie Underwood to justice.”

Jack cocks his head. “You’re still on that?”

“Yes, I’m still on that,” Peggy snaps, “and if I had my druthers, I’d still be pursuing your shooter, too.” 

Jack squints at her. “Thought I told you to drop that,” he says slowly.

Peggy squirms. “Yes, well – ”

“Look,” Jack interrupts, “I know the hit came from within the SSR, all right? I – ”

“Oh right. You’re a company man, I’d forgotten,” Peggy says waspishly. “No doubt someone at a higher pay grade assured you it wouldn’t happen again.”

Jack flinches. Even the vodka coursing through his veins can’t soothe the sting of her barb. “I was  _ trying,” _ he says irritably, “to protect you.” As an afterthought, he adds, “And Sousa.”

“The only person Jack Thompson is capable of looking out for is Jack Thompson,” she grits, hairpins clenched between her teeth. She turns on the vanity seat. “Case in point: this mission.”

Jack pinches the bridge of his nose. “Do you really think this is just a – ” he’s about to say  _ diplomatic mission _ but catches himself just in time.

“What?” Peggy prompts. When Jack says nothing, she presses, “Well? Out with it.”

And she continues to look at him expectantly until he relents. “OK,” Jack says. “OK,” he says again because no doubt she’ll be furious. “The summit’s just an excuse for us to be in Germany,” he admits. “Tomorrow I’m going with General Huebner to an old Nazi base on the Austrian border.”

“Oh?” says Peggy. “Oh, tomorrow you’re going with General Huebner to an old Nazi base. And when were you planning to tell me? Because I’m starting to suspect you weren’t.” She laughs caustically. “What do I know? I only spent half the war with the Howling Commandos, tracking down Hydra – ” she breaks off. “In the Alps, you said?” She comes to sit next to him on the bed.

Jack traces the seam of his mouth with his thumb. “Colonel Phillips thought you’d remember the one.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. “You spoke to Colonel Phillips?” Peggy says sharply.

“He called the New York office – ” Jack starts, but she isn’t interested in hearing his explanation. She slams the bathroom door so hard it rattles the ugly framed art over the bed. 

“ – asking for you,” he finishes feebly. Frustrated, Jack rips off his bow tie. That’s when he remembers he’s still wearing a wire. “Hope you enjoyed the show,” he sneers into it before ripping that off, too.

Peggy hauls the bathroom door open. “What did you say?” she demands, a hand on her hip.

“Nothing,” Jack says angrily.

*

“You must be Colonel Phillips,” says Jack to the haggard-looking man who greets them at the air base the next morning. “Jack Thompson.”

Phillips takes one look at Jack’s outstretched hand and turns to the general. “Who the hell is this?” he demands in an accent Jack thinks is Texan. “I asked for Peggy Carter.”

“Actually, Colonel Phillips,” she says, emerging from the half-track, “it’s Peggy Sousa now.”

“That’s right,” says Phillips, uncrossing his arms to wag a finger at her. “I did hear a rumor you’d gotten married. Sergeant Daniel  _ Sousa, _ West Coast Bureau Chief of the SSR. Where is he? I’d like to shake his hand, this man who convinced Peggy Carter to take his name.”

“Mm,” Peggy hums. “I think Daniel would tell you the trick was not trying to convince me.” 

Phillips chuckles. “Good girl,” he says. He turns to Jack. “And what did you say your name was?”

“Lieutenant Jack Thompson, sir,” Jack says eagerly. “New York Bureau – ”

“That’s enough, sailor,” Phillips interrupts. He claps Huebner on the back, steering the general toward the aircraft. “Clarence,” he booms, “what’s all this talk about Austrian independence?”

“I wouldn’t take it personally,” Peggy tells Jack, slinging her pack over one shoulder. “It’s not you, it’s the Navy. Be glad he didn’t – ” 

“Bellhop, help the lady with her bag,” Phillips hollers.

Jack tosses the rest of their gear into the cargo hold with more force than necessary. Naturally, as soon as he’d told her what was really going on, Peggy had invited herself along on the mission. He boards the C-45 and takes the seat farthest from Peggy, which isn’t very far.

It’s a small plane.

Jack angrily straps himself in as Peggy asks the whereabouts of the 107th. “Somewhere in Eastern Europe, last I heard,” Phillips shouts over the thrum of the engines.

“That really narrows it down,” Peggy says with a wry smile. “Frankly, I was surprised – ”

But then the plane lurches off the runway into the sky, and Jack’s too busy keeping his breakfast down.  _ Shouldn’t have had that last drink. _ Trying to keep pace with Vasily Sokolovsky, the Soviet Deputy Minister of Defense, had been his first mistake. Letting Vasily Chuikov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, pour the drinks had been his second. Jack rests his forehead on the window.

He must drift off because when he wakes up, he’s short of breath. Jack gasps, drawing air into his lungs. He tries to be subtle about rubbing his chest, but of course Peggy notices. She unbuckles her harness and, despite the turbulence, crosses the cabin with ease. “All right?” she asks, dropping into the seat next to him.

“Fine,” Jack growls.

Peggy rolls her eyes.  _ “Fine,” _ she mimics. “Be that way.”

And she rejoins Phillips. Jack closes his eyes again.

“In Bastogne,” he hears Peggy say softly, and Phillips whistles.

“Lost a hell of a lot of good men that day.”

“Yes,” Peggy agrees, “Daniel was one of the lucky ones.” There’s a pause. “I’m sure you know he was a reconnaissance scout.”

“Dugan might’ve mentioned it. Let me guess – he end up pinned behind the German line?”

“Mm. When his scouting team was rescued, Daniel – the ninny – chose to hang back because they needed men who could disarm bombs in Bastogne.” At this, Jack’s ears perk up. He’s never heard the story. “Of course, he was shot. You know the rest.”

“Wheels down in ten,” the pilot announces.

Jack glances out the window. They’re flying low over a dense alpine forest, snow-capped mountains in the distance, nothing that remotely resembles a runway in sight.

It’s a rough landing. The C-45 rattles to a stop in a patch of overgrown dirt that might’ve been a road once. Jack catches Peggy by the elbow under the auspices of helping her from the plane.

“You were worried,” he hisses.

Peggy tugs her arm out of Jack’s grasp. She glares at him. “About you? Yes,” she whispers furiously. “You’re pale as death, Jack. All this thin air can’t be good for your lungs.”

Jack pulls a face. “Not about me,” he says, jerking his chin at Phillips, who’s standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the general some fifteen yards ahead. He peers through a pair of binoculars before handing them to Huebner.  “You were worried he wouldn’t approve. Of Sousa,” Jack clarifies.

Peggy hops out of the plane and takes off without a backward glance, leaving Jack to retrieve all their gear.

“That’ll do,” says Phillips, picking up a 12-gauge shotgun. He nods at Jack. “Look alive, sailor.”

They leave the pilot with the plane and hike about a half mile through the foothills before Jack can see the great concrete slabs rising from the shadow of the mountain. Huebner had briefed them on the way to the airstrip: aerial surveillance photos taken in early spring suggested someone had been there since the last flyover in late fall, possibly all winter. Jack watches Peggy brush her fingers over blast damage on a nearby bunker wall. “Scorch marks,” he observes, sidestepping a twisted hunk of metal.

“These weren’t here last time,” Peggy calls.

Jack tightens his grip on his rifle.

*

He’d seen some messed up things during the war – blood, viscera, limbs twisted at impossible angles, human parts severed from their bodies –  but there’s a cold, clinical cruelty to the surgical theater they find that makes Jack’s stomach roil.

Phillips has his arms folded across his chest. “How recent?” he asks Peggy, who’s crouched down to inspect a dark stain on the floor. His eyes, Jack notices, never leave Huebner. The general is pacing along the room’s perimeter.

“Hard to say.” Peggy pushes up from her knees. “Based on the splatter patterns, the operating table must’ve been here.” 

A red-faced Huebner appeals to Phillips. “Chester,” he pleads, “you’re not actually buying this, are you?”

“What’s there to buy, Clarence?” Phillips retorts with a sweep of his hand. “They’ve turned the place into a damn sanitorium.”

“But  _ why,” _ Huebner explodes. “Why here? The location of this base is classified. Hell,  _ I _ didn’t even know it existed until you called me! Now you’re telling me Hydra’s conducting science experiments again?” He shakes his head. “No, I don’t believe it. It isn’t possible. It’s too remote. What the hell kind of surgery can you perform with a – ” he plucks a razor-toothed medical instrument from a steel tray “ – a scalpel and a saw, anyway?”

Jack takes a step back and another fluorescent light flickers on in the back of the theater, illuminating a twisted heap of metal limbs with wiring exposed. “Amputations,” he whispers.

Peggy pushes past him. “Good lord,” she says, inspecting one of the arms. “It’s like it was ripped off.”

Jack frowns. “But it’s robotic.”

“See for yourself,” Peggy says with a shrug, stepping aside so he can get a better look at the blood-flecked shoulder joint. She produces a pen and begins to prod the arm, until the metal tendons flex. There’s a scrape as the hand balls into a fist.

They jump back.

“Ah, hell,” says Huebner, and he storms off.

Jack watches the general go. “Why wasn’t this place destroyed?” he wants to know.

“Officially? The war ended. Unofficially? Some egghead in the War Department probably thought it could be repurposed.” Phillips circles a chair reminiscent of the one Jack had sat in to have the ship’s dental officer pull two molars. “Though, it looks like someone beat us to it.”

Peggy, who’d been bent low over a prosthetic foot, straightens. “I should’ve put a match to the place when I had the chance.” She flounces off, clutching her M1A1 Thompson.

Jack starts to go after her, but he doesn’t get very far. Phillips throws out an arm to stop him. “At ease.”

“We still need to secure the rest of the base,” Jack protests.

“Carter scoured every inch of this place when we thought there might be a way to bring Captain Rogers home,” says Phillips. “She’ll be fine.”

It takes Jack a moment to realize the colonel’s talking about Captain America.

*

Peggy doesn’t say much on the return flight. As soon as they get back to the hotel, she retreats to the bathroom and doesn’t reappear until Jack’s almost ready for dinner.

“Zip me?”

Peggy’s standing in the doorway with her back to him, silk corselet on display, and Jack momentarily forgets how to tie his bow tie. “Uh,” he says, wondering why the hell she’s asking him.

“You told Daniel not to come over,” Peggy reminds him. “I believe your exact words were, ‘And keep Larry and Moe with you.’”

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I said, ‘And this time, try keeping an eye on Larry and Moe, will you?’”

“Fine,” says Peggy, “I’ll zip myself.”

“Now Marge,” Jack drawls, crossing the room, “we both know how hard it is for you to ask for help.” He reaches for the zipper of the midnight blue gown. What was it that Ramirez once said? That none of his sisters looked like Peggy? Well, Jack’s an only child. He swallows hard.

“And the fastener,” Peggy prompts.

It occurs to Jack he’s never done this before, zipped a woman into her dress. “Give me a little credit,” he huffs, and he manages to affix the hook-and-eye closure on the first try. He takes a step back to admire his handiwork. “How would you’ve done that yourself?” he wants to know, genuinely curious.

“You know, I often find myself wondering the exact same thing – how is it that Jack Thompson buttons his own trousers?”

Jack quirks an eyebrow. “Who says I don’t have help?”

He isn’t expecting her to whirl around and grasp the ends of his bow tie, expertly knotting it at his throat. Peggy smooths his collar. “Will that be all, Chief?” she simpers. When Jack doesn’t answer, she says, “I’ll give you a minute.”

“I’m good,” Jack calls after her, but she’s already closed the bathroom door.

*

“You know, Marge,” Jack says with a smirk, “I’m a pretty good dancer. You might actually enjoy yourself if you let me lead.”

To prove his point, he spins her with the music, only for her to crash into his chest.  _ “Oof,”  _ Peggy huffs. She tries to step on his toes.

“They teach you that in finishing school?”

“You did that on purpose,” Peggy seethes, baring her teeth in what might pass for a smile if Jack didn’t know better.

“Don’t you two look like you’re having fun,” Florence gushes, dragging the general across the dance floor. Huebner doesn’t look like he is.

“Oh, Margaret loves to dance,” Jack says wickedly as the band launches into an uptempo tune. “Isn’t that right?”

“You’ll pay for this, Jack Thompson,” Peggy says under her breath, but he’s not wrong. She’s a decent dancer once she stops trying to wrestle him for control. “You didn’t pick this up at any USO dance,” she says casually as they swing in time with the drummer. “Who taught you?”

This time, she follows flawlessly when Jack pulls her into a turn. “I learned in school, same as you,” he tells her. “Bit different than swaying in the living room to Benny Goodman, huh?”

Peggy stops short, forcing the couples around them to course correct to avoid collision. “You’re an arse,” she spits, and she leaves Jack in the middle of the dance floor.

“Oh, come on,” he says when he catches up to her in the hallway. “Like you and Sousa don’t spend every Saturday night at the Jarvises’ listening to the radio.”

Peggy rounds on him, clutching a fistful of her gown. “Which you only know because we took you in!” she says furiously. “No, Daniel doesn’t dance. It’s never mattered to me. Why should it matter to you?”

Jack bristles. “’Course it doesn’t matter,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I was just making a joke, that’s all.”

“That’s just it. You’re always making a joke at Daniel’s expense. Must you mock him at every turn? My husband is a good man.”

“Keep it down,” Jack hisses. “I’m supposed to be your husband, remember?”

Peggy scoffs. “There isn’t a universe where I’d marry you, Jack. This is all pretend, in case you’ve forgotten.”

He flushes. “Gee, Carter, thanks for the reminder,” he mutters.

“You needed it,” Peggy says smugly.

Jack’s eyes narrow. “Watch it. I’m still the one running this op.”

Peggy snorts. “Oh, you’re the one running this op? I’d – what was that?”

“What was what?” But then Jack hears voices on the other side of the ballroom door. 

“I do not trust the Americans,” Elly Winter is saying. “There is – ” the door swings open “ – something strange about – ”

Peggy drags Jack down into a kiss.

Her lips are full and soft, and he’s tasting the whisky on her tongue before it occurs to him that she’s doing this to maintain their cover.

Winter coughs. “Pardon me,” she says politely.

Peggy flutters one hand down to Jack’s chest, keeps the other firmly planted on the back of his neck. “Oh my gosh, you’ve caught us,” she giggles, hiccuping like she’s had too much to drink.

As soon as they get back to the room, Peggy wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “I’m just going to – ” 

“Why don’t you,” Jack agrees, and she disappears into the bathroom. He feels hot. As soon as he hears water running, he starts to undress. He shucks his jacket, his bow tie, his shirt. He’s pulling his undershirt over his head when Peggy emerges from the bathroom.

“Oh!” she says, startled. “I was just going to get my – ” she breaks off, staring at his bare chest.

Jack wets his lips. “Yeah,” he says, fumbling over his words, “I guess it’s pretty bad.”

He’s not expecting Peggy to take a step forward. Gently, she traces the ugly, raised line down his sternum. It’s the first time a woman not in nurse’s whites has touched his scar. For a half-second, Jack thinks she’s going to kiss him again. Her lips part. 

“I miss Daniel,” she confesses, turning her head.

Jack inhales sharply, reaching for patience. “He’s your husband,” he says. “It’s allowed.” He turns his back to her, rummaging around for his pajamas.

“Jack,” Peggy says.

“I’m – ” his voice cracks “ – tired.”

She nods. “I’ll be quick about it.”

But she pauses in the bathroom doorway. “You’ll find her, Jack. She’ll accept you as you are.”

She pulls the door shut before he can respond. Jack changes and crawls into bed. He hears the shower stop. It’s now or never. He starts tossing pillows off the bed one by one until he’s dismantled the wall Peggy built between them on the first night.

“Really, Jack?” she asks him when she sees the pillows scattered all over the floor.

He throws the last one at her. “Just get in bed, Marge,” he says gruffly. “I’m not going to put the moves on you.”

“Oh, fine,” Peggy concedes, getting under the covers. “Good night,” she says sweetly. Immediately, she puts an ice-cold foot on his ankle. Jack shivers. OK, he deserved that.

*

Jack opens the door and calls, “Honey, I’m home!” The smell of a roast wafts into the entryway as he shucks his coat and hangs his hat on the rack. He loosens his tie as he walks into the kitchen. His wife stands at the stove. “Mm,” he says, wrapping his arms around her from behind, hand settling on her swollen belly, “something smells delicious.”

“I’ve invited Wilhelm Pieck to dinner,” she informs him in her crisp British accent, and Jack startles awake.

Peggy – the real Peggy, not the one who’d been barefoot and pregnant in his dream – is asleep in his arms. She wriggles closer, grumbling into her pillow.

That’s when Jack realizes he’s painfully, achingly hard.

_ Fuck. _

Maybe he’s still dreaming. Yeah, that’s probably it. Jack squeezes his eyes shut and breathes in Peggy’s lightly floral shampoo. He opens his eyes.

No, definitely awake.

Jack tells himself he never wanted this, then tells himself again.  _ Get the fuck out of here, sailor, _ screams the tiny part of his brain still capable of self-preservation, and so he begins the delicate process of extracting himself.

Only to have Peggy fling an arm over his hip. “Stay,” she commands sleepily.

“No can do,” Jack mutters under his breath as he shimmies out from under the covers.

He needs a cold shower.

But he waits until he hears Peggy’s unladylike snore before creeping into the bathroom, wincing as he walks. He tugs his shorts down over his erection and steps into the tub, cranking the tap to cold. Icy water hits him square in the face, and he waits for it to do its job.

Except hot water is a luxury Jack rarely affords himself. He’d grown so accustomed to regulation showers in the Navy he hadn’t bothered to break himself of the habit after the war. Even when he’d been recuperating at Stark’s, he found himself turning off the water to lather. 

And so he remains stubbornly hard.

This is ridiculous. Jack braces himself with one hand on the tile and reaches between his legs, begins to jerk off with brutal efficiency. Water cascades over his shoulders as he silently rubs one out. Another trick the Navy taught him. He tries to keep his mind blank, but all he can think about is Peggy. 

Peggy’s bare skin against his fingertips as he zipped her dress. Peggy’s soft lips against his mouth as she dragged him down for a kiss. Peggy’s sure fingers against his sternum as she traced his scar. Peggy’s round bottom against his –

Jack comes all over the shower wall. Water droplets cling to his eyelashes, and immediately he feels guilty. That’s another man’s wife he’s fantasizing about. Sousa’s, in fact.

A woman Jack actually respects.

Sincerely wishing he’d thought to bring clothes in with him, he ties a towel around his waist and listens at the door, trying to ascertain if Peggy’s awake yet. She isn’t snoring like a lumberjack, but he can’t hear her rustling around either. Jack frowns.

He still isn’t expecting it when a man bursts in with a Tokarev TT-33.

*

“Oh good,” Peggy says briskly, and her pretty features come into focus as Jack blinks, “you’re awake.” Before he can figure out why he’s flat on his back, she rises to her feet. His eyes reflexively follow her to the cell door, but when he tries propping himself up on one elbow, the corners of his vision blur. Bile collects at the back of his throat. A second later, he’s retching.

Peggy rolls him onto his side. “There you go,” she coaxes. “Get it all up.” She rubs little circles between his shoulder blades.

“Didn’t ever think I’d see the day,” Jack pants, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. He tastes blood but can’t tell if it’s from his fat lip or split knuckles. “Peggy Carter playing nursemaid.” 

She purses her lips. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

Jack shakes his head. “Couldn’t tell you,” he admits. “But if I had to guess, just the one. The – ”

“ – middle one, yes, how very clever of you,” Peggy interrupts. “Jack, you do realize we’ve been kidnapped, right?”

They’re in a dimly lit room, three slab walls and a row of rusty metal bars. “Yeah, I’d kinda worked that out, Marge,” Jack says, watching as his vomit drains down the sloping floor toward the center grate.

Peggy stands, wiping her hands on her pale pink nightgown. “What,” she asks, “is the last thing you remember?” This time, her pacing doesn’t make Jack sick.

Jack has to think about it. He recalls fighting with her in Technicolor detail, but after that, everything’s woolly. “I was in the shower,” he says slowly, and no, that can’t be right because he’s sure he never got dressed. The pants he has on are his, though, as is the undershirt.

Peggy arches an eyebrow. “What? They couldn’t very well carry you out naked.” Her hand on her hip only accentuates her full breasts, plainly visible beneath the thin material of her nightgown.

And that’s when Jack remembers what he was doing right before the man with the gun cold-cocked him. He flushes guiltily. “Peggy, this is my fault,” he tells her. “I should’ve – ”

“Your fault?” she challenges. “I’m the one that was fast asleep.”

But at the back of Jack’s mind, he knows they should’ve been able to shower and sleep without fear. After all, they’d been in the most heavily fortified hotel in West Berlin, under constant surveillance. To get to them, the kidnappers would’ve had to incapacitate the rest of the team. “Peggy,” he says, swallowing the lump in his throat, “I’m so sorry. Daniel was a good – ”

“How very like you to jump to the worst possible conclusion,” Peggy interjects. She crosses her arms. Self-consciously, he thinks. “There is another explanation, but you’re not going to like it.”

“Try me.”

“Blough is a double agent.”

Jack nods. It’s a patently absurd suggestion, of course, but he tries to consider how she must be feeling. “I could see how you’d prefer that scenario over your husband being dead, yeah,” he says thoughtfully.

“‘You get the dame, I’ll get Chief Thompson,’” Peggy recites in her awful American accent. “How else would they have known we were SSR?”

“They could have tortured that out of Blough, or Sousa, or – ” Jack’s eyes narrow. “Hold on, how do you know it wasn’t your guy who sold us out?”

“Because I know Agent Morrison wouldn’t have,” she says furiously.

“And I know Agent Blough wouldn’t have,” Jack counters. “So I guess we agree. Everybody’s dead, and nobody’s coming for us.” He watches Peggy lower herself onto the metal bunk in the far corner of the cell. He wonders for half a second why she didn’t haul him onto it but gets his answer in the way she cradles her ribs. “What did they do to you?”

“Nothing,” she lies.

Jack scoffs. “Obviously not nothing. You’re hurt. What happened?”

Peggy grits her teeth. “Drop it, Jack. It isn’t any of your concern.”

“Like hell it isn’t,” says Jack, struggling to his feet. He reaches a hand out to steady himself when he sees stars. The concrete block beneath his palm is cool and damp. “I’m your CO.”

“Chief,” Peggy corrects quietly as he joins her on the bunk. “You’re not my CO, but you are my chief.” Her touch is gentle as she inspects the goose egg on his temple. 

“I guess they’ve got us in the brig, huh?” he says absently before he remembers she doesn’t speak Navy. “Guardhouse,” he translates.

“Oh,” says Peggy, folding her hands in her lap. She isn’t wearing her wedding ring, Jack notices. “I thought it rather looked like barracks when they dragged us in.” She lifts her chin, and he finds he desperately wants to trace the bruising along her jaw. “The bastards chloroformed me.”

“Well, that explains how they got the drop on you,” says Jack. “I was wondering.”

“Jack Thompson, did you just compliment me?”

Smiling hurts his split lip. “I wouldn’t get used to it.”

Somewhere in the facility a door slams. They both scramble off the bunk as heavy footfalls echo down the hallway. A man in a well-decorated Soviet military uniform is accompanied by two gun-toting soldiers, one of whom aims his weapon at Jack and Peggy while the other unlocks the door.

“They will not hesitate to shoot you,” the commander warns in precise but accented English as he steps into the cell. “Chief Thompson, now that you are awake, we have some questions for you.”

Jack wets the inside of his mouth and hawks a loogie at the man’s boots.

With a nod over his right shoulder, he says something in Russian that makes Peggy flinch, and Jack doubts he’ll get as lucky as he did the last time he was shot in the chest. Still, he doesn’t hesitate to step in front of Peggy.

The first blow from the guard’s rifle butt cracks Jack’s collarbone. The second shatters the elbow he instinctively throws up. He sags to his knees, but before the third blow falls, Peggy’s pinned the guard to the opposite wall.

The officer begins to clap, chuckling softly. “Yes, we were warned not to underestimate the chief’s wife,” he says as three more guards swarm the cell. Peggy’s forced to her knees next to Jack. He feels the poke of a gun barrel against the base of his skull and clenches his teeth. At least it’ll be quick. “Indeed, it is useful to have an agent inside the SSR. Now, if you will just provide us with the coordinates of the Hydra facility you visited, my guards will not have to shoot you.” A pause. “Or your wife.”

“Don’t know where you’re getting your information,” Jack spits, along with a mouthful of blood. “It’s not very good.” Not if they think he’s the chief married to Peggy, it isn’t. 

“Very well,” says the Bolshevik. “Comrades, we interrogate her first.”

*

Occasionally, a scream will puncture the silence, and that’s how Jack knows Peggy’s still alive. Whenever he thinks he’s heard every one of her pained cries, she’ll make a new, horrifying sound that causes him to flinch. He squeezes his eyes shut.

“I know her.”

It’s the man’s American accent that makes Jack straighten. He scoots to the edge of the bunk and leans forward to eavesdrop. Hadn’t Peggy said one of their kidnappers was American?

“I know her,” the man says again. “Where do I know her from?”

“You met her at hotel,” comes the terse reply in broken English. 

“I knew her before.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

But the American persists. “Who is she? Why do I – ”

“No more questions!” There’s a thud – Jack’s broken collarbone throbs when he hears a rifle butt pound against flesh – then a long string of commands barked in rapid-fire Russian. Jack tries to commit the sounds to memory. He can ask Peggy later what it means.

If she survives. As if on cue, he hears her scream. Jack already knows he’ll never forgive himself if she dies and he doesn’t.  _ Try explaining that one to Sousa, _ he thinks grimly. That’s if Sousa’s still alive. He probably isn’t. 

When Jack opens his eyes again, there’s a man posted outside the cell. His hair is longish, just this side of unkempt, like Jack’s hair had gotten at Iwo Jima, and he’s wearing a mask that covers the lower half of his face. Behind it, he breathes heavily, his hands balled into fists. His left hand, Jack realizes with a start, is made of metal. 

“Nice arm,” Jack says sarcastically, shoulder twinging as he swings his legs off the bunk. “Where’d you get that?”

The guard doesn’t say anything.

“What’s it do?” Jack needles. He plants his feet on the floor and, ignoring how lightheaded it makes him feel, stands. “C’mon, I know you speak English.”

Still nothing. 

Jack switches tactics. “What does Leviathan want with an abandoned Hydra base anyway?”

At this, the man reaches forward and grasps one of the bars with his metal hand. Jack thinks for a second he’s about to see an impressive display of Soviet technology, but the arm must short-circuit because it fizzles and falls limply back to the man’s side.

Jack can see the pain in the man’s eyes. “Ouch,” he says, remembering the bloodstained wiring on the arms and legs they’d found back at the base. “That looked like it hurt.” 

In the distance, Peggy moans. 

“She’s not going to break,” Jack boasts, more confident than he feels. “You’d know that if your agent within the SSR was any good.”

The guard slowly turns his head in the direction of her pitiful cries. “Maybe she’s not the one they’re trying to break,” he suggests, voice hoarse. He turns his back on Jack.

“Stop,” Peggy begs. “Stop, please stop – ” she chokes out a sob, then whimpers.

In a fit of anger, Jack grabs the bars. “Why are you doing this?” he hollers, rattling in his cage. “What is it – ”

Peggy cries out.

That’s it. Jack’s ending this. “The base,” he calls desperately after the man with the metal arm. “It’s at forty-seven – ” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized after I wrote the scene with Jack zipping Peggy into the dress that there's a very similar joke in [The Lights In Suburbia](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6882751) by Sholio. She's an incredibly talented author, and if you haven't devoured everything she's written about Peggy/Daniel/Jack, you need to.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Tumblr](http://em2mb.tumblr.com/).


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